A unique fluffy bird in the wild West Highlands of Scotland

Month: April 2015

Algy flew out onto the rocks, and found a perch that was reasonably sheltered from the cold north wind. The tide was high, and most of the beach was covered. As he looked back towards the shore he marvelled at the beautiful colours of the sea: shimmering turquoise over the pale sand, and a mixture of deep blues and purples over the swirling beds of seaweed. On a day like this it was hard to believe that this was north-west Scotland and not some more exotic location, but the icy wind ruffling his hair feathers soon reminded him where he really was 🙂

After two days of remarkably wintry weather, with driving showers of sleet and even snow, the sky cleared and the sun emerged at last. Algy felt that he must go down to the sea again, so he flew over to the beach and was delighted to find a bleached tree trunk cast up by the storms onto the rocks. It made an ideal perch, so he sat there for quite some time, enjoying a wee bit of warmth from the spring sun and marvelling at the crystal clear sharpness which the cold air from the Arctic had brought to everything.

Although it was bright, it was a bitterly cold day, with a strong icy wind blowing straight from the Arctic. So Algy flew down to the warmest spot he know – the flat red rocks by the side of the blue burn. It was sheltered there, and the sun warmed the rocks nicely, so he made himself comfortable and spent a happy Sunday afternoon just watching the water flow by.

Algy hopes that you are all enjoying your Sunday in a comfortable spot too 🙂

The mist blew away again, and the sun was shining once more. Algy took his wee friend from Germany, the little black teddy, to admire a fine patch of cowslips, and they settled down beside the flowers to enjoy the sunshine. Algy opened his battered book of verse by Longfellow, and started to read to his wee friend:

When the warm sun, that bringsSeed-time and harvest, has returned again,‘Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs The first flower of the plain.

I love the season well,When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell The coming-on of storms.

From the earth’s loosened mouldThe sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;Though stricken to the heart with winter’s cold, The drooping tree revives.

The softly-warbled songComes from the pleasant woods, and colored wingsGlance quick in the bright sun, that moves along The forest openings.

[Algy is reading the opening stanzas of An April Day, a very early poem by the 19th century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.]

It was Earth Day, and a huge wave of dense white mist was rolling in from the sea again. Soon it would cover everything, and both land and sea would be obscured. Algy perched at the edge of the dunes, watching the mist approach, and wondering whether human beings would manage to avoid destroying their own home. Their ways bewildered him; all he could do was hope for the best, because he rather liked the Earth himself. As he felt the first cold droplets of the mist tickle his feathers, he thought of a poem by a particularly talented and thoughtful human, Mary Oliver:

Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring

down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring

I think of her, her four black fists flicking the gravel, her tongue

like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There is only one question:

how to love this world. I think of her rising like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against the silence of the trees. Whatever else

my life is with its poems and its music and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness coming down the mountain, breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her— her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love.

[Algy is quoting the poem Spring from the collection House of Light by the contemporary American poet Mary Oliver.]

Something miraculous had occurred in Algy’s assistants’ garden. It happened once a year – and only once – and each time it delighted Algy as though it had never happened before. He perched among the blossoms and watched the bumblebees buzzing around each flower, while the newly arrived warblers flitted about among the branches of the other trees which had not even got their spring leaves yet. As Algy buried his beak in the beautiful white blossoms, he remembered a haiku by Issa:

the cure forthis raucous world…late cherry blossoms

.騒がしき世をし祓つて遅桜sawagashiki yo wo oshi haratte oso-zakura

[Algy is quoting a haiku by the 18th century Japanese master Kobayashi Issa in a translation by David G. Lanoue.]

While Algy was reading, he noticed some movements among the irises in the shallow water, so he put his book down and moved closer to the stream. He was hoping to meet a frog, but although he watched very carefully, no frog appeared. He was a wee bit disappointed, but there were plenty of tiddlers and Whirligig Beetles in the burn this spring, so Algy spent a happy afternoon watching them instead 🙂